Summary
English 101 Langston Hughes -Don-t Give Up Summary
- Course
- ENGL 101
- Institution
- Edmonds Community College
English 101 Langston Hughes -Don-t Give Up
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Janny YanDan Hurley
English 101
December 7 2017
From Words to Actions
Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work," which was the perfect response to his
failures before creating the first successful light bulb. Many men
would be discouraged even after a couple of times of failing at
a single task, but Thomas Edison shows that perseverance and not
giving up can eventually lead us to our goals. The perseverance of
great scientists, artists, and engineers is what created our modern
world. This idea of perseverance has existed through many stories
and great literature, inspiring audiences everywhere to strive for
excellence. Poetry is used widely for people to express their
feelings and share their story in a thematic and structural way.
“Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes and “Don’t Give Up”
by Lamyaa Hanchaoui share the common idea of
perseverance through the integration of varying word usage and
structural repetition; despite, the differences
and similarities between the two poems the ideas of Hughes'
poem is still relevant today.
Perseverance is the solution to almost every problem possible.
As long as people keep working towards a solution, they
will eventually reach a resolution. This universal mindset of not
, giving up without an answer is found and represented in many
ways. In Hughes' "Mother to Son" perseverance is represented as a
journey to reaching the tops of a set of stairs. This journey up these
stairs is not as simple as they sound. These stairs described
by Hughes maternal narrator are full of, "Splinters, / And boards torn
up,"(3-4). that directly correlates to the "bumps in the road."
Perseverance described as a journey up a set of difficult stairs is
also contrasted with a set of, "crystal stair[s]"(2). The idea of
perseverance explained from the mother to the son also includes
how the journey to the top could be as easy as, "crystal stair[s]"(2)
because those stairs do exist, but they are rare. This rareness of
those stairs relates to the unlikeliness of having and easy journey to
the top or resolving one's problems.
In Hanchoui's poem "Don't Give Up" it gives ideas
of persevering through mental struggles rather than physical. The
journey represented in the poem compared to "Mother to Son" is
about one's mental wellness and the struggles that come when
people question themselves. Her image of perseverance is to fight
the battles that people have inside their heads.
She encourages people to not question or doubt themselves: "So
don't sit hour over hour / while your tribulations tower /
don't forget the countless blessings / every rich you have been
showered" (:50-:55). If people are able to believe in themselves,
the outside pressures / factors will become easier to tackle. Both
poems represent the path people take to overcome struggles
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